but, first, the process president and those tears he shed. good morning. aim melissa harris-perry. you already know the big news of the week. on tuesday night barack obama was once again elected president of the united states. but this year's party in chicago had nothing on 2008. back then more than a quarter million people crowded into grant park. mother nature even seemed sure of the outcome offering up an unbelievably warm 60 degree chicago night and the place was crowded with more black vips than the ethnic music festival. this year was more modest. a single podium draped with a touch of bunting, a far more typical cold, gray november day greeted the just about 10,000 supporters who found their way into chicago's unremarkable

mckorm make place convention center. there was hugging, dancing, but the tears were more from relieve than inspired awe. be careful because if you decode this election night on the optics alone, you will believe them to be more different than they really are. despite a two-year halt in legislative accomplishments brought on by a recalcitrant republican party, an anemic economy, and a bruising campaign that lacked the historical fervor of the first, president obama nonetheless won re-election with nearly every state he initially won four years ago. and while turnout was down nationally over the past election, it wasn't fultd by an obama enthusiasm decline. something else was remarkably similar, the man who was elected president, the rock solid steadiness of no drama obama is

best exemplified in his two acceptance speeches. in 2008 president elect barack obama stood before hundreds of thousands and gave a speech that began with recognizing history. >> been a long time coming, but tonight because of what we did on this day in this election at this defining moment, change has come to america. >> he graciously responded to the campaign of his opponent. >> senator mccain fought long and hard in this campaign and he fought even longer and harder for the country that he loved. >> he sketched a governing agenda. >> there's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build and threats to meet, alliances to repair. >> and he was infused at every step with a deep sense of

national unity borne from the creative possibility of possibility. >> let's summit a new spirit of patriotism, responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other. >> in 2012 president obama followed the same pattern. he once again rooted the moment in american history. >> tonight more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward. [ cheers and applause ] >> once again, he thanked his opponent. >> for george, lenore, to their son mitt, they the romney family

has chosen to give back in public service and that is the legacy and honor that we applaud tonight. >> he gave us the outline of an agenda. >> reducing our deficit, reforming our tax code, fixing our immigration system, freeing ourselves from foreign oil. we've got more work to do. >> and once again the entire speech was crafted to reflect the national motto of out of many, one. >> we are greater than the sum of our individual ambitious and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. we are and forever will be the united states of america. >> so steady and familiar was the president's acceptance that if malia weren't two feet taller than the last election, they may have thought they traveled back.

this is illustrative of an argument i've made about president obama. by my reading, president obama is a procedural democrat. he has a deep and abiding faith in the processes of democracy and it's on these processes, on these ways of engaging that he rests his fate in our ability, in our systems capacity to eventually reach just and fair outcomes. the president fully understands history is riddled with inee kwaul 4ri9 at this, injustice and strive but he believes we can be perfected through engaging in public oo life. the president says it's held in the democratic inches city tuesdays, the open innocence of franchises, the quality of deliberation and degree of transparency and mekisms in of accountability. this is different than leaders who are most interested in ends. they insist most vehemently on the ends they want to achieve and they work backwards to craft

those strategies that meets those goals. these two can be great leaders. for a process president, the means are the end. on tuesday night president obama spent the bulk of his speech praising not the outcome of the election, but the process by which it was achieved. active participation by citizens. >> i want to thank every american who participated in this election. whether you voted for the very first time or waited in lineor a very long time. by the way, we have to fix that. >> did you catch that? the thing that needs to be fixed. the quality of the process. now the pundants have spent the latter half of this week dissecting what signals the american people were sending on tuesday night, but determining the will, the corrective wilf more than 120 million people is complicated. ascertaining the inclinations of a man as consistent as president obama is somewhat more straightforward.

by giving such parallel speeches in response to both of his victories, president obama offers us tremendous insight into who he is as a president. he is a man who understands his place in history, refuses to vilify his opponent, knows that his individual success is a result of collective work of family and staff and volunteers. has an agenda but will always pursue that agenda within the constraints of a democratic process that honors diverse perspective. this commitment to process means that the left will soon be irritated that he is not brave enough and the right will soon seek to exploit his commitment to process by using the institutions that they control to block his way. but even for those looming likelyhoods, the president has a response. >> the roll of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote. america's never been when what

can be done for us but what can be done by us. the hard an necessary work of self-government. that's the principle we were founded on. with me are steve kerr knacky, host of the cycle and wade henderson, president and ceo of the leadership conference on civil and human rights. it's so lovely to have you both here on this first nerd land after the election. wade, do you think i have that right? is this a president fundamentally interested in process? >> melissa, i think you have it right and i think that was a great introduction to what is trially an historic and game-changing election. before we talk about process though, let maine just say three things. first of all, as important the the first obama election was historically, this is almost as equally important. >> yes. >> because it validated his presidency, it preserved the affordable health care act, it

impud dye eighted the super pacs and it shows the overreach with voter suppression didn't pay off. it galvenized our community and we came out strong. thirdly, it helped to set the agenda for the future. i think this guy has done an incredible job and we should give him credit for having run the smarter of the two campaigns. he helped rewrite the political makeup of a successful campaign. he exposed how america has changed. >> yeah. >> so i think you're absolutely right and i think one of the things that he has done, he's the only president who faced the challenge of an entrenched opposition that was prepared to elevate partisan interest over national interest and i think the debt ceiling debacle was a reflection of that. so he has had to walk a delicate line between being overly aggressive and overly assertive which many presidents have done and be would not have gotten him the affordable care act had he done so but at the same time to

steer the direction and the discussion in a way that allowed people to see him as the president of all america. >> steve, i was thinking through this notion of the presidential process. i was thinking about the health care town halls. this republican marist emerged that he rammed through partisan legislation. i kept thinking that part of why it was part of a soft act and not single payer is because he was committed to process. is that the sort of thing we can expect in the second term as well? >> yes. the first test is going to be on the term everyone uses is fiscal cliff. call it the gradual fiscal slope. >> i like that. >> this is sort of a testament. republicans came out and said on taxes nothing has changed. the republican party position for the last two decades of no rate increase for anybody, especially the rich, period, under any circumstances stands. obama came out yesterday and said his bottom line on this is that the bush tax cuts for the top 2% have to go.

let's see how these negotiations pay off. i think we'll get to the end of december with the republicans making the debt that they don't have to budge. they can blame obama if we go over this cliff. i'm curious to see how that plays out. >> we're going to stay on exactly this issue. we'll bring a couple more voices to the table because i want to see what president obama's peers meant for us this week. stay with us. so anyway, i've been to a lot of places. you know, i've helped alot of people save a lot of money. but today...( sfx: loud noise of metal object hitting the ground) things have been a little strange. (sfx: sound of piano smashing) roadrunner: meep meep. meep meep? (sfx: loud thud sound) awhat strange place. geico®. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

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>> blue, red, the work that i'm doing. i'm really proud of that. i'm really proud of all of you

and -- >> that moment was from president obama's emotional speech to his campaign staff the day after he was re-elected. we're still here talking about president obama's passion for the process. joining our panel are raoul reyes and nancy gooils. raoul, when i saw the president choke up about that, he also had gotten emotional the day before the election talking about the fired up and ready to go, a volunteer who chose not to go to chicago, i'm like, that's it. that's the process. he cares about his domestic accomplishments, but he got emotional about the idea that he has fired up a group of activists to be part of the process. >> people at that level in politics are under so much pressure to keep a certain amount of their personality in

check, to moderate themselves. when you see the tear or when he really connects with people, that's what draws people in. that's what reminds people of this long journey that he's been on. i found watching that myself very moving. it's almost profound because it reminds you at this level you don't get to that level without people waking up early on saturday and going and annoying people by knocking on doors. that is beautiful. that is wonderful raw humor. >> the inverse of the 47% video where when you get to see someone with their defenses down. >> isn't that true. there you see the core of the man. there were some commentators that was like, this is a side of obama we've never seen before. i was like, what are you talking about? i have only seen the heart and the thoughtfulness. whenever she sees him, she's

sobbing. we cry all the time. because i have to just say, there is still this visceral reaction. i could do it now to see him up there and especially in those two moments especially after the pressure he's under. it blows my mind how the lives he's touched, including mine, and the pressure he's under. >> yet we know for me part of it is the embodiment of the american state within a black body, all of the things that he represents, but i also think it shows up in his governing. steve, before the break you were talking about the fiscal cliff. nobel prize winner paul krugman said, go over that cliff. is that the guy who this president is? it feels like he's so interested in deliberation that he wouldn't drive us off the cliff. >> i don't think that's the president he wanted to be when he was elected in 2008 and

that's not the president he governed as january 2009 to august 2011. he did try to get republicans to help with health care, stimulus, all of these things to doing the attempt at the grand bargain with john boehner. he thought he was going to get that. i think when boehner pulled back and could not deliver a single republican vote for a tax hike, i think that was instructive for obama that these guys are never going to cooperate for me particularly on taxes. there's a much more pop pew louse tone. my guess, this is a guess, but my guess is this is a bottom line issue to him. it bothers him. it really bothers him how they behaved with the debt ceiling. he looks at this as it's not going to happen again. all the tax hikes and cuts will go away and i can propose the obama tax cut for 98% of americans. >> it's interesting. there is this other place where

i buy that the press is a process president and would argue for it on domestic politics. he is a a different duck in the foreign policy land. many liberals would have a critique of some of his lack of process in some of the foreign policy stuff. is part of what he's saying that the recalcitrance of the republican house might bring out that aspt of president obama? >> well, i think there are two things. first, i think steve is absolutely correct. the republicans forced his hand. by showing that they were going to be entrenched opposition that could not be reformed or changed, he had to assert himself. the debt ceiling debacle was the place where it all came together because i think the country saw how the resistance would not move and his progressive allies were profoundly disappointed that he was, in fact, rolled by the republican issue. so i think in the foreign policy realm he was determined to show that as a democratic president he could be strong and obviously his effort to get osama bin laden was a big piece of that.

but his policy towards syria, his policy toward the iraq war, his effort with afghanistan was all designed to blunt that effort. >> that's true. >> as much as he is committed to process he is also committed to an outcome that means a lot to people. he's dedicated to addressing the jobs crisis. it's profound. he wants comprehensive reform. the rights of women to protect their own bodies. this issue has now been elevated to the point of real political asset for him. >> he connects it to his daughter, his wife, his family. can i just say because this has really bothered me this right after he did his acceptance speech he called john boehner and he called mitch mcconnell and they were asleep and wouldn't come to the phone. >> that was kind of crazy. >> i want to say that is completely unacceptable and disrespectful. they would never do that to bill clinton. what if he was calling to say

the bomb has been dropped. what? >> both in the way that he talked about mccain and the way that he talked about romney. one of the things i loved about what he said about romney was he drew it in as a whole family, talked about george and lenore. >> classy. >> it was. it forced that crowd to applaud mitt romney. that's part of the process. you have to knit everybody back together. we're going to stay on process and specifically on the process of how we got here, in other words, through voting. how do we keep voter suppression and jerry man derg on the agenda even after the win. ♪

as we look ahead to the beginning of a continuing administration for president barack obama, we have a reminder of why a president's legacy looms so much larger than a four or eight-year term. yesterday the supreme court announced that the voting rights act and specifically section 5 of the act is in its cross

hairs. section 5 required mostly southern states with the history of disenfranchised voters to get federal preclearance before they can make any changes in their voting laws. that's anything from redrawing congressional districts to moving polling locations. this year's election section 5 was the shield that the justice department used to defend democracy against voter suppression in southern states that tried to implement new laws. now it's up for discussion. so if this is a process president and one who's also a constitutional scholar, how do we keep, despite the obama win, how do we keep voter suppression and section 5 of the voting rights act on the agenda for the democratic coalition? >> yesterday's decision by the supreme court was a troubling indication of why the supreme court and judicial appointments are so important. >> so we're glad that he won. >> yeah. but certainly the election also showed that voter suppression, voter intimidation, barriers to

the electoral process are alive and well. we saw it in florida, ohio, pennsylvania. if ever there were a need to justify why having interventions like the voting rights act and other laws are in place, we have that. i think there is now clearly an emerging consensus. how extensive it is, we don't know. i think both republicans and democrats saw those eight hour lines and said you can't have this in kabul and baghdad and now you have it in the united states. we have to address that. >> let me ask this. much of it was not happening in the south. it was happening in plea clearance states. is that exactly the reason to do away with preclearance and say, well, you know, if it's happening in ohio and pennsylvania? >> no. i think that this president absolutely has to use the bully pulpit to an extent. he's a former con law professor to explain to the country why this is so vital and important. when they hear things about supreme court cases, illegal things, they check out. >> they glaze over. >> something that affects

everyone. it affects women, it disproportionately affects people of color. this is a case of a parent and a child. if the child acts up and lies and miss behaves constantly, the next time the child comes to the parent the parent is going to monitor everything he does. that's what the case with the voting rights is about. these states have a very shameful, very unfortunate legacy of tram bling on the voter rights act. you should say where that's not happening -- >> also doing things like having this conversation and coming from people who can break down what the laws are, how they affect people. i always questioned why voting had to be a state's right matter. >> right. >> i wondered why aren't voting hours especially for presidential elections uniform. why isn't the ballot the same? >> you know the answer to that. the answer to that question is that of course -- speaking of process, our country is the grand compromise between slave states and free states.

we're still dealing with the legacy. >> in the wake of the 2000 election we did have the help america vote act. i don't think the republican party will reinvent itself overnight. it will be long and drawn out. i'm already detecting when it comes to immigration a sense of urgency about this basic demographic reality. it's untenable going forward. i think there might be a window there for more federal standards about voting machines per cap a capita. >> let me ask you one other aspect about this. we talked about voter suppression and less about partisan gerrymandering. look at ohio. that's ohio, district 9, right? you can see obviously by the way it's shaped that it's one of these sort of insane gerryman dered districts. democrats running for the u.s. house of representatives

received more votes overall on tuesday night than republicans running but republicans very much held their seat in part because in 2010, elections have consequences, you have gerrymandering and the way we get that on the agenda. >> that has to be i think a state level thing. iowa does the total nonpartisan legislative. in california you had the new system. the democrats are going to make gains in california or could make gains in california. that's something that has to come in on a state level. pennsylvania is a perfect example. states that obama won by five points. i think the delegation of pennsylvania will be like 13/5 republican coming out. >> i'm sorry, it brings it back to the fact that all politics are local. if i ever learned anything before, i've learned that about this presidency and how it's not just one man that can do things. we have to really pay attention. >> yes. >> people don't. >> i think our chances of

getting universal registration, same day voter registration are far better than ending the gerrymandering which is at the state level. democrats in the house won by over 500,000 votes and yet they only picked up 18. i can assure you they'll fight back. >> when we come up next, i've got a letter. y'all know you love my mailbag. my letter today to ohio's john houston. stay with us. look how small they were! [ husband ] transfer! [ male announcer ] free data transfer at home. you just deleted all the photos! you did! no you did! [ male announcer ] or free data transfer when you buy a windows 8 computer at staples. another way staples makes it easier to upgrade.

begins with back pain and a choice. take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. good eye.

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how you feeling today? still a little sore, i'd imagine getting beaten so forcefully with all that backlash had to sting a bit. probably going to leave a mark. after all, you spent the better part of this year throwing the full force of your power as secretary of state into restricting the right of some ohioans to vote. and on tuesday it boomeranged back up side your head. after john kasich and state republican leaders tried to restrict early voting the week before the election, president obama's campaign flew to restore early voting for all ohioans. when a judge agreed, you gave us the first indication of just how far you'd go to stop people from voting. not only did you appeal that decision, you also ordered county election boards to defy the judge's order and not restore the early hours. fortunately that judge called your bluff and ordered you into court to explain yourself. you backed down rather than go

to the judge. no, they, too, agree that ohioans should be able to vote the weekend before election day. what did you do, you appealed again, this time to the supreme court who promptly shut you down with a one sentence statement from justice alaina kagan. john, i'll give you this. you are nothing if not persistent because denied of all your attempts to limit the days, you limited the hours. you shortened the time available to vote. last weekend compared to the same weekend in 2008. you've been a busy guy, john. between all that time spent trying to block voting on the weekend before election day, you somehow managed to eliminate early voting on all other weekends where it had been previously allowed and fired two democratic election board members who tried to permit it. with only four days to go until election day, you attempted to twice the knife one last time. last friday you issued a

directive in opposition to ohio election statutes to put the burden on voters for mistakes written on provisional ballot forms. all about ensuring that some of them would get thrown out. once again, the courts will not be fooled by your shenanigans. in a hearing disputing your directive on wednesday a federal judge said that, quote, it was filed on a friday night at 7:00 p.m. the first thought that came to mind was democracy dies in the dark. so when you do things like that that seems to avoid transparency, it appears then, gives me great pause, even greater concern. the voters response to your tactics, not only did african-american voters not get suppressed, we turned out in historic numbers. in ohio african-americans comprised 15% of the electorate. that is up 11% in 2008 and 200,000 more votes. latino voters turned out in

larger numbers and made an even stronger showing for president obama than in 2008. that's all despite the long lines that wrapped around blocks because you see, john, those voters that you tried to suppress have a long memory. they remember when they faced literacy tests, lynching, burns, shootings all in a right to vote so they would not be deterred by a lack of patience and uncomfortable climate and they would certainly not be deterred by you. jon, there is something else you should know about the memory of those voters, in 2014 when you're up for re-election, they're also going to remember what you tried to do. sincerely, melissa.

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mitt romney were white. 88%. only 56% of president obama's electorate was white. and, yet, president obama won. mitt romney lost. there is a new electoral map in america, and in the past if you got only 43 and 39% of the white vote in two straight elections, odds were you were going to walk away a loser twice. for president obama in 2008 and 2012, those percentages were enough. the impact of the white electorate has been on a steep decline. in 1980 the portion of the electorate that was white was nearly 90%. in this week's election, it was a mere 72%. when president obama wins 90% of the african-american vote, 71% of the latino vote and 73% of the very broad group that constitutes the asian-american vote, given the increased proportion of the electorate that those groups represent, his was a coalition that won the election.

so we know that these minority groups will only continue to grow until people of color in the united states are the majority. the demographics, demographics are not electoral destiny. which is more important, that there are more diverse citizens participating, that they have a more diverse array of candidates? all very complicated. joining me to answer those questions, steve, raoul, ray and nancy giles. i think that the news of the demise of the white man is vastly overstated. am i -- it's been a weird couple of days. >> it's been weird to watch white people report on this. i'm not trying to -- you know when you just showed that graph of the decline of the numbers i thought, maybe that's why they're trying to eliminate all these abortions. they're trying to build up the race. maybe. >> there is always eugenics associated with it. >> how crazy.

i'll tell you one thing in the whole thing that did bug me. i'm looking at you because i don't want you to be offended. the constant talk about the gop reaching out to latinos, latinos, latinos. nothing mentioned about african-americans. latinos. why even bother? why even try? >> it does feel like -- part of it is because it's been a long time since 40% of the black vote went over to the gop but latino voters under george w. bush gave president bush 40% of the vote. >> right. the funny thing -- first of all, i have to say this. this was a really good week to be latino. i'm not just saying that because president obama was re-elected. for two generations hispanic voters have been the sleeping giant and people always wonder why we don't show up in proportionate numbers. where were we? that's always been a nagging question. for so many people, republicans and democrats alike, all right, we are fully engaged in the

civic process. there's tremendous pride. the republicans are already talking about all this hispanic outreach and reaching out to latinos. what they don't realize, they're focused on their messaging, toning down the debate. it's not the messaging. >> it's the policy. >> right. their messaging was loud and clear. we know what their messages are and people rejected it. now their plan b, which they are going to, is promoting candidates such as marco rubio, ted cruz. saying, okay, now we're going to dress up these policies that no one likes with a brown face. that's still not going to work. latino voters vote policy. we do not vote for co-ethnic. >> i'm fascinating. interesting the difference between black and latino vote. it's a very rough parallel, but i think the relationship is about where the relationship of black voters was in 1964. >> that's right. >> the republican party was historically the home of black

voters during reconstruction. the republicans nominated barry goldwater, lbj signed civil rights. the republican party learned we can never be anticivil rights. rich 5rd nixon was pro civil rights. it was the southern strategy, northern white ethnics, we're going to suddenly stoke reserchtment. >> crime. >> crime, welfare. >> remember that number. >> so the result is since 1964 there hasn't been an election where the democratic party got less than 80% of the black vote. yes, i think republicans are going to line up as a party against comprehensive immigration reform. that will be like the republicans after '64 saying we're for civil rights. the question is does the tone change the way it didn't with republicans and plaque voters? >> i think a weird thing that's going on, it feels that it's going on, it feels like there's this white folks are done. the cover of "newsweek" on the

one hand it shows the president represented as napoleon. at the top it says, you're old, you're white, you're history, right? at the top. i'm thilg, actually, no, if you're old and white you control most of the economic resources, you have a longer life span, you have better health, your children are likely to be in better schools. i think we have to be careful not to assume that being part of a multi-racial winning electoral coalition necessarily means that with it goes all of the other goodies of democracy. >> i think you're absolutely right. the idea of the white vote demise vastly overstated. >> have you seen this? >> right. we've seen that. thank you. let's also ak knowledge the fact that, look, obviously it's not just about dem graphics, it's about policy. i think steve highlighted the relationship between the republican party and the african-american community. i think going forward the question is going to be what

kinds of policies will both the president and the republican party imbrags. immigration reform is needed. i found the interesting statistic to be the asian-american vote. >> yes. >> because the asian-american group doesn't have the homoge nate, the cohesion. you're talking about south asians, vietnamese. the fact that they gave 73% of their vote to the obama presidency tells you that it really is about policies and not about demographics alone. they are the community that is most likely, it would seem, to align with the republican party because of economic interests. >> i can see if you're east asian, the rhetoric of romney on china. the whole shooting that happened at the sheik temple and of course george allenback on the virginia ballot. all of that has a force for south asians. i want to talk a little bit

about a kind of old racial cleve vaj, the black/white one. yes, something happened at oel miss. some people said the n word. no, it's not a race riot. how it's the same but very, very different when we come back. ♪

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since the president's re-election we've had ugly tweets, heard ugly sound bites and seen ugly behavior. one occurred at ole miss. on tuesday night hundreds of ole miss students exchanged racial epithets and violence politicized chance in response to president obama's election. it was 50 years ago that lethal riots broke out. this thing that happened tuesday

night wasn't that. but it does speak to a need for more sophisticated racial conversation, one in which we don't assume that the entire south is full of unreconstructed white racists but in which we also don't assume that the south is entirely out of reach for this new multi-racial coalition. so, you know, i live in louisiana. i kind of always hate, oh, look the racists have shown up in mississippi. you know, because ole miss, yes, this is happening. it elected its first black homecoming queen this year. yes, you have the james meredith moment, but then you also have -- there's ole miss's homecoming queen this year. i want to peg this and say, yes, this is ugly but i want to be like it's sort of not that big a deal. >> melissa, look. racial bias is not a geographically specific problem, okay? so it's not limited to the south.

you talked earlier about lines that were barriers to voting in ohio, pennsylvania, other parts of the country. that happens. 50 years james meredith integrated ole miss and began a revolution in higher education for people of color. 150 years ago we celebrated or commemorated the emancipation proclamation. at the same time we need to recognize that more change is needed. it's slow. it requires public education. it requires leadership from the top. we're not getting that from many of our elected leaders. president obama is unique. you don't see that at the state and local level which is where it's at. >> i love, is it quite as unique or all by himself as he was, i love business week article this week says that come january women and minorities for the first time in u.s. history will hold a majority of the party, this is the democratic party, house seats.

so a minority of house democrats are white men. this ain't 50 years ago. >> the flip side of that is the house republicans are still 91% white men. i agree with what you're saying, that not all southern people are racist, but we do need more, you know, leadership. yet we are in a position where people who are driving the discussion at the national level, people like john sununu are out there talking about the food stamp president, calling him lazy. throwing out not even racial coding but sometimes very plate tent assertions on people. this past election and this election cycle we have heard so much of the we have to take our country back, that mantra. what i really believe in going forward for the republicans, what they need to do, they need to take their party back. they need to reclaim their parties from the extreme right wing who have gone to the center and are driving our party. many of those people who in a different time would have been

considered nuts, they are front and center. that's very dangerous to the public. >> i like that. rather than focusing on a group of teenagers who are tweeting gesso bell which is a fight that i love. they did this whole expose on teenagers who were tweeting racest tweets about the president. i thought, focus on john sununu. >> also have a real conversation when that kind of thing happens. it's not racest, it's other things. when john sununu said the only reason colin powell supported president obama and then he -- colin powell worked for a white republican guy, remember? colin powell didn't support herman cain. >> right. >> the thing i loved about colin powell, getting back to your point, they need more people like colin powell. they need thoughtful people that will make the entire democracy

better. >> the older generation has to get with it. remember when we talked about george wilt who said the only reason obama is going to get re-elected because he's black. he's got it made. who thinks that? he is a respected mainstream person. >> i'll give you the last word, our last 30 seconds. >> depending on where you look at this country you can get encouraging or depressing demographic lessons. you talked about mississippi. what bothers me is the partisan polarizati polarization. he got less than 10% in mississippi but the flip side is i was in northern virginia. it felt like i was seeing the future. it's a majority minority county. it's completely integrated. the growth there is explosive. that's the future. >> i love that, steve. thank you for joining us. you want to put mississippi in

play, you end lifetime felony disenfranchiseme disenfranchisement. the next thing you know, mississippi is in play. thank you, steech. stroong ger unions, the legal use of marijuana same-sex marriages, it was a liberal party tuesday night. or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky. or that you had to print from your desk. at least, nobody said it to us. introducing the business smart inkjet all-in-one series from brother. easy to use, it's the ultimate combination of speed, small size, and low-cost printing.

welcome back to the second hour of mhp. i'm melissa harris-perry. on election day we saw some big time muscle flexing and be it wasn't just by president obama. oh, no, my friends, it was as if the left wing of the democratic party. they won several major victories in the form of ballot initiatives for the liberal agenda. teachers unions racked up victories in indiana, florida,

and south dakota. they fought off vouchers and defeated laws and measures that would have taken away their bargaining power. if they stick, the state of washington and colorado may become some of our more popular tourist destination as both passed initiatives to legalize recreational marijuana use although it remains to be seen if they face a challenge by the justice department. same-sex marriage, maine, maryland, washington, d.c., allow same sex couples to marry. excuse me, washington. they join the sis states and the district of columbia that have passed such measures. what can these victories teach us about the larger democratic party? for one, it tells us there is a little power in the left ring of the democratic base. while they may not have won everything, small victories can add up to major change. i think it also tells us that we need to be a little careful

because, for example, people having the right to marry whomever they want is a fantastic step in the right direction, but i submit having the civil rights of anybody on the ballot is a concern. at the table, we have wade harrison, raoul reyes and nancy giles, writer, social commentator and one of my favorite people. laura, blue grit looked like it was occurring. >> what was so fascinating was that book was written a few years ago. what we've seen in the coverage of these ballot initiatives is as if they just dropped from the sky and people went out and vot voted. these are the result of long-time organizing initiatives. the civil rights initiative, the campaign against affirmative action. there's two ways to go on this. one is super exciting. progressives took the lead on issues that political leaders

have shied away from. parties tend to do the numbers. here you have the marijuana initiative which were really about the war on drugs. >> right. >> all this idea of recreational use is smoking while skiing. >> right. >> it's plugging into a concern about the war on drugs. >> let's make that really clear for viewers. i think some of the coverage, we've been teased on comedy central. the giggling of all the pundants, it's because we spend millions of dollars and destroy millions of lives by locking people up in our federal and state jails for very small possession charges around marijuana. >> and i think what you saw in these two states which are now in conflict with the federal government potentially is the pulling together of a coalition that i hope the obama administration looks at. it's not just a left wing liberal smoker, it's also libertarians who want the

government out of their lives, it's also conservatives looking at the fiscal numbers behind incarceration and it's a whole lot of moral folks who say it has been wrong for many years for us to be sending people for a long time had jail for nonviolent small drug crimes on the basis of these three strikes you're out laws, things like that. beside which, it's not working. this is an area that i think the ballot initiative movement could be nudging the administration and obviously some of the other topics that were raised in ballot initiatives included things like money in politics. colorado and montana. let's hope they take action on this too. >> wade, let me ask you this. the idea of people's rights being on a ballot. on the one hand, man, same-sex wins with like -- it made 2012 so much easier that than 2008.

you had the obama win but you had to eat with proposition eight. it makes me nervous. >> it should make you nervous. when you think about the electoral process, the democratic process, if you allowed civil and human rights to be on the ballot, i'd be a slave. let's start here. i thought the maryland initiative was particularly significant. i agree it should not have been on the ballot. the legislature enacted the law that allowed it to be validated by the ballot itself. governor martin o'malley was smart. he knew if he wanted to get support of the populus there he had to open it up. then he began a campaign which was endorsed and completely uplifted by the naacp and -- >> after president obama came out. >> well, actually, i think it helped. he did make a huge difference.

but to have julian bond on tv and radio saying that this is a matter of fundamental rights, human rights, it made a big difference. >> the naacp made a huge difference around the marriage equality. >> that's what i'm talking about. it was huge. >> it is such a mixed bag. the great thing about these ballot initiatives, the people get together. it's a snapshot of where the country is now. when we get into these issues, some people civil rights are up for a vote. we can be happy about it now maybe because we're supporting same-sex marriage but what if it had gone the other way, prop 8. it's such a mixed bag. yet at the same time there are different take aways and lessons we can draw. also in maryland, the dream act there passed. their version of the dream act which will give in state tuition to undocumented students. maryland is a state with less than 3% hispanic population.

it's not that all the hispanics were supporting it, they formed a coalition. they were able to education people and bring support. that's very important. >> it can be done. >> this was my favorite part of the initiative. as much as i have anxiety, people, civil rights, over and over again these were coalitions where people were supporting privileges and rights that weren't fundamental to them. >> each other. >> they were doing it for each other. that feels like something that is durable. nancy, one of the things we know about democratic voters, they do a great job in on year election, show up. get yourself a good person at the top of the ticket and out we come. >> then we sleep. democrats nap it out. >> here's a couple of good lessons. this is an example, state's rights can be effective. you can build on those things. again, we've got to wake up.

that's the one thing about legalizing pot. oh, my god. some of my progressive friends, they're going to fall asleep even more. we need to wake them up. again, keeping these things in and talking about them is going to help. i get so frustrated with that. they're a product mostly not of democratic campaign machinery. it's grassroots organizing. that's what made the difference, the dream act initiative or the marriage equality stuff. this is the product of years. the same with maine. 2004 is when maine put a nondiscrimination initiative on the ballot. you had states passing laws gradually, cincinnati, topeka. you've got real progress over a decade and, again, sometimes in our coverage we just say, wow. >> you know what, the process isn't sexy. that's not what gets the coverage.

partly because of social media and everything, everyone thinks 245 chan that change is going to happen like that. i would get in arguments with my progressive friends and they want it now. >> this goes back to the beginning of the show where we were talking about president obama as the process president. we live in a big, diverse democracy, you're going to lose about half the time, right? that's just -- it's sort of the nature of the process. you're going to go in, you're going to lose, you're going win. that's why my nervousness. the winning or losing as you point out, it's not immediate, it's about long term processes. you have a second term president. president obama will never face another election on which he is on the ballot which is undoubtedly why he let jay-z close. so does the left go in? is this the moment where

whatever punch polling there was, and there wasn't necessarily a lot, do they start making demands on this administration? >> altogether now, yes. >> right. yeah. >> i mean, i think that the message from this vote needs to be taken loud and clear. 3 million vote popular majority. you've got an extraordinary -- we were not waiting to count the votes on thursday morning. this was a clear-cut win. i think we need to say very clearly that it was a clear-cut win against tremendous odds and a tsunami of money messaging messages people did not buy. the fight against austerity won and we need to see an agenda against austerity. >> that's what i want to talk about when we come back is about the unions because they seem to be back. i'll explain that next. ♪ ♪ ♪

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johnson and progressives wanted to give the people a check on corporate political power so they introduced the ballot initiative and with the help of people the poll tax abolished, the university system funded, and corporate power finally kept in check. the ballot initiative started with progressive roots and became law in almost half our states. so while the ballot initiative has early 20th century progressive roots, it is making a comeback in 21st century politics. it's not always progressive. this tuesday, unions, be it labor, education, were aibble t yield the power.

i'm interested, there was a bit of a mixed bag for unions. michigan there was a bit of a loss, particularly around this, i think it was called the working families amendment that would have put collective bargaining in the state constitution. but there were other big wins especially for education unions. i was saying we had the push back against voter suppression. was this the push back against the wisconsin scott walker behavior since 2010? >> i think so. i think also that we're hearing all this talk already that labor unions are back. i think more than anything it speaks to the absolute need and how vital it is to have that grassroots mobilization. it's not enough to say i have a union with 10,000 members. that means nothing if those people are not willing to get up there and vote and discussion the issues, to talk to people. it speaks to the grassroots efforts like ohio, lesser extent in wisconsin. in the midwest they were able to

energize their members and base and get them to turn out for things that directly affected them, to involve them in the process. >> even with -- when wisconsin lost, when they weren't able to recall scott walker, that was an amazing example of the power of unions and number of unions. i am a member of sag. a loot of our members went to support other unions. they are their grassroots equivalent there too. >> no, go ahead. >> i think ohio really exemplifies it. because obviously in ohio you had john kasich, the governor, approaching a union initiative. lee saunders, who is the president of a union, they

helped target ohio. they turned out, organized, put people on the ground. they made a huge difference. >> you know, your point about ohio goes back to some of what you were saying earlier, laura. there's a kind of symbiotic relationship between the parties who are trying to put candidates in office and sort of the ballot initiatives that are trying to pass. ohio is the perfect example because it is the battleground state, right? it becomes the focus. you end up with tons of advertising and focus. so they can work together. then you see these weird sort of things happening in other states that weren't sort of battleground states where you get split decisions between those ballots and what was happening in terms of the election. >> ballot initiatives are loud and they're easy to whip up people behind sort of yes and no decisions. what we've learned is ballot initiatives, yes, no, black/white thing is really shallow. it depends on the people's positions, voting positions that depend on their sense of relationship to politicians,

people who pursue these issues and their understanding to say the quality on the ground organizing. in michigan, for example, you had a win on the question of these emergency manager laws. people have got it. they've experienced it in their communities. the fact that the unions lost on the collective bargaining initiative, i think it's fascinating that this issue has yet to be really communicated even by unions to union members. and not to get on their case. i think 30 years of media bashing unions. most americans have lost any idea of what unions are really about. >> what they mean. >> if you are watching me at home on a saturday morning right now, that's because of unions. that's why you have time to be home watching television. up next, the change that you can buy for $6 billion.

the estimated price tag for the 2012 election is more than $6 billion. $6 billion. it's an amount of money so staggeringly large that my brain can't quite think of what it could buy. i mean, i like stuff, but there aren't enough cars or summer homes or vacations. 6 billion. i can't possibly compute what i or you could buy with that money. here's what it buys you in an american election in 2012. a president obama, a democratically controlled senate and a republican controlled house. yeah, it buys you exactly what you already had. the democrats increase their senate margin by a couple. the gop might pick up, you know, one or two in the house once the final races are called. of the 11 governor's races from tuesday, one resulted in a party switch. we can safely say it's not a

change election. for office holders at least. when i come back down to the ballot measures, change did happen. $1 billion. that's the estimated cost of what was spent on either supporting or opposing ballot measures across the country in 2012. 174 is how many statewide measures voters considered. 1,000 plus is the number of local decisions. a whole lot of voting influenced by a whole lot of money leads me too ask this question. for democrats, will the ends of passing progressive ballot initiatives justify the means of using a disproportionate amount of money to either champion or defeat them. citizens united or campaign finance reform? anyone, is the fire out? >> two initiatives did pass on this very issue, colorado and montana both voted in colorado to pass against citizens united. this is a sobering one because

you talk about what that $6 billion could do. that was money spent on both sides. >> altogether. >> didn't just buy the democrats. but new orleans, staten island. >> do you know how many levys that can get you? >> who was the first one to model up front campaign financing without any money, that was barack obama. i still don't think democracy by dollars is democracy, particularly in a country where 42% of the wealth is held by certain people. >> did the fire go out, citizens united is the worst thing that are happened. and people show up and vote for the people they want and they say, money is no big deal. >> i feel conflicted. the fact is because of citizens united, this is the game. that money is going to be out there. the question is are you going to

compete in this game or are you going to stay in it? unfortunately for the democrats, it's almost like you have to. it would be great to be principled and to go back to that and say, we're not going too do that and still push for campaign finance reform. >> it's not all bad. >> for the economy. >> they didn't take it -- >> yeah, right. it created jobs for people. they spent that money. i mean, you know, they paid local television stations. >> for ad time. >> but you know what, the truth of the matter is even in repealing citizens ou nigunited that's going to cost money. i don't know how we unwind this. >> don't assume that because tuesday's results turned out as well as they did and we wanted them that money is really -- has been discredited completely in this process. i can assure you those that embrace citizens united will

come back strong. if we are as complacent next time as wooefe were in 2010, we have the same results. >> a concern i have is this question of whether change might come from someone in surprising places. there were some candidates that were pretty fed up with the ads that ran, they discredited them. there were some donors who were really pissed at karl rove this week. i was wondering if the system is working for anyone or if we might see interesting coalitions of people. >> i like this idea that republican donors are like, wait a minute, i paid you how much? you couldn't give me good polls in ohio. there is this possibility. your point. incumbents are always inherently bought into the system in which

they just won. they now know how to navigate the state status quo. >> it worked. >> how do you get incumbents to make those changes. >> progress is never a linear straight line between a problem and where we'd like to go, both in terms of the advancement of civil and human rights and these issues, you have fits and starts. sherrod brown was the senator who probably had the most amount of money thrown at him and it was a dread full deal. claire mccaskill had tons of money. she ran the most strategically brilliant campaign. >> didn't she? >> amazing. >> focus on what laura said, both of you, in fits and starts. anything that makes people pissed at karl rove, thattest a step in the right direction. because i've thought about that billion. $6 billion is 6,000 million

dollars. that's what that is. >> can you believe that. 6,000 million dollars. >> thank you, nancy. and the rest are sticking around. up next, randiweingarten. she is going to join us. her union helped to get the president re-elected but are she and our friend arnie duncan about to do battle? stay with us. and these come together, one thing you can depend on is that these will come together. delicious and wholesome. some combinations were just meant to be. tomato soup from campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do.

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the way it cleans. everything about the oral-b power brush is simply revolutionary. oral-b power brushes oscillate, rotate and even pulsate to gently loosen and break up that sticky plaque with more brush movements than manual brushes and even up to 50% more than leading sonic technology brushes for a superior clean. oral-b power brushes. go to oralb.com for the latest offers. in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers, a country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow. almost every president has run as an education advocate and yet this campaign cycle it was

dealt short shrift. a race to the top and common core standards, little has been outlined. what does the president's re-election provide for an education mandate in the second term. to help us answer that question is one of the most influential voices in education, randi weingarten who is dressed in her hoodie sweatshirt because you are out doing work around sandy recovery in the schools. >> satly. we're working -- we have several -- we have hundreds of volunteers today that have come from different cities throughout the united states. ast volunteers to help with community recovery on coney island, the rockaways, and help with staten island. i'm going back in my sweatshirt and garb. thank you for having me this way. >> of course. absolutely. all right. the president is re-elected and stands once again in chicago to

accept the presidency once again that the american people have given to him. so i was there that night and, you know, i've got a long history in chicago. my thought is, yes, this is great, this is exciting, and this is the site of the chicago strike. this was the moment where the whole education question came to a head. chicago teachers saying, yes, we can have a longer school day but we've got to have nurses, social workers and activities in the school, not just longer hours in the seat. you have parents supporting them. people saying this is the union being against the kids. what did the chicago teachers strike provide in terms of capital that you can spend in the second obama administration? >> that's a great question. most importantly, what happens is i've been involved with education for a quarter of a century and watched great reforms go bye-bye when new people were elected. the rhetoric about education and the reality about education are

totally different. so it's really easy to say we want all kids to learn and then actually doing it is the hard work. when it takes too much time, somebody then starts blaming a single party and demonizing. that essentially -- if we could actually get that message across and change that, that would change education. frankly, everyone has to step up. everyone has some culpability in this and everyone has a reason to push through. so take even the chicago strike, what karen lewis and the teachers and parents -- because parents were hugely supportive. >> yes. >> were saying, look, let's actually do something worth while in a longer day. if you have five periods of mathematics done the same way as we tried to do at one point in new york city, it's not going to work. let's make sure we have things like in the edwards school in boston, i use these examples

because there are examples where we see things work, then let's use it to engage kids. we know if kids are engaged in music, they don't drop out. we know if you actually figure out what will spark an interest in kids whether it's robot particulars, for me it was civics because i was a social studies teacher, arts, physical education, sports, if you spark an interest in an add less sent, they'll stay. >> i'll go a step further. it seems like there was a time, randi, where parents were at fault. the schools are doing what they can, now it's parents, parents, parents. now it's teachers. they're insufficient, inadequate. we can't have them making living wages or any of those kinds of things. >> right. really, really important but we're going to bash them and we don't want to hear their voice. >> it feels like not only do you need these kinds of things to keep students engaged, but

teachers in order to feel excited and make a difference, you can't have 50 kids in a classroom and be teaching to a standardized test and feel at all points like you might be fired because of a statistical standard deviation drop. account president, can the administration make any difference in that? is this too much of a local issue? >> the president can actually make a big difference in that in two ways. number one is through the bully pulpit which he is extraordinary about, extraordinary. number two, we were full on supporters of the president and it's clear that this election was a real victory in my judgment for americans and for trying to figure out how everyone gets to the american dream. that's also the issue in terms of education. there can be federal policy that helps enable opportunity, enable innovation. it can't be stifling. i think what happened with no

child left behind, as important as it was in terms of shining a spotlight on kids who were left behind, what happened was all of that testing became stifling. so it actually stifled innovation because if people are too focused on what the test results are as opposed to the steps and stairs of how we help kids learn and engage, number one, then they're too afraid to fail, stul bl, try thu things. number two, everything became about testing. two examples rocked my mind. i was in albuquerque, new mexico, the emerson school. i went to a fifth great class. this is a school that is totally turning around, people are working together, doing the common core, doing things that -- doing good strategies that are going to work -- that will probably work. fifth grade class. i said to kids, what do you want to learn. hands shot up. science.

science? great. i'm like, what, all of you, science? anybody want to learn about the president, the election? why science? they hadn't had science ever. why? it's not on tests. even beforehand, it's not on the test. there was such a fixation about the test. this is stem education. meryl johnson in cleveland told me in cleveland, she actually just retired. great english teacher, cleveland, a place where we're trying to work together. the levy just passed. the austerity in cleveland, she has 55 kids. in each of her english classes. do the math. how do you differentiate instruction for each child with 55 kids. so the issue comes if we stop the blame game of parents and teachers. somebody can't do their job,

they shouldn't be there. >> that's right. if we stop this make crow blame game and start doing what is working and how do you sustain it and scale it up in other places, then you will turn this around for all kids. >> randi, stay right there. it's exactly on this issue of all kids. we're going to bring the panel back in. i want to talk about the fact that the public school population looks an awful lot like president obama's winning coalition in terms of who is sitting in those classroom seats. come back. ♪ ♪

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school students are minorities. perhaps for politicians looking to court the minority vote they can begin to address the needs of their future electorate. welcome back to the panel, randi wine guard ten, raul reyes and the public school ethnic makeup looks fascinatingly like the obama re-election coalition. you see a decline of white students in public schools. an increase of students of color over those years particularly african-american, hispanic, primarily south asian students. and you see east asian students. that growing brown population. when we talk about school reform and public school reform and wh disproportionately students of color. >> right. at the turn of the last century it was a different wave of immigration. at the turn of this century it's

a different wave of immigration. >> yeah. >> but what we don't do enough is understand that it's a false choice to say poverty is on the one side and education is on the other side. we have to stop that debate and say how do we make schools just like they were at the last century, the center of community. do things like that so that we can actually help the whole child and help whole families. >> and the engine of social mobility. >> absolutely. >> this is how they made their american story was through education. >> latino students tend to be in underperforming schools, in areas with high poverty rates where there's a shortage of bilingual teachers. sometimes i can tell when i'm talking to people, hey, this is a latino issue. this is not a latino issue, african-american issue, this is

public education. so much in education, it centers on charter schools. i always wonder, what about the kids who are not in the charter schools. >> you started by saying who's in the public schools. right now in the area that is hit by sandy, who's in the schools? it's their entire families. they've gone there as refuge. i'm wondering how many parents are looking around in those schools and people who aren't parents entering the buildings for the first time, what shape are they in and how desperately we need them. wait a minute, this is my issue. >> you know how many people voted in schools? they're also polling places. >> it's a cliche. i want to pick on something that raul said. education is a key for

opportunity. the educational testing service issued a report called the fault lines of american democracy. they drew a correlation between poverty, the age of the individual and educational attainment. kids without a high school d diploma are less likely to vote. older americans are making decisions that affect their lives and they're not participating in that effort. >> right. >> we have to turn that around to draw and link the fact th together. >> ps 38 in staten island. the school is going to be okay. kids are coming back to the school. the city has done a lot to try to put schools back on line. 65% of the kids are dislocated from their homes. so that's a whole other issue. this is what schools do. we take care of kids first and

foremost. >> yes. >> then we educate kids secondly. i know we want to educate kids first and foremost and educate them but what we have to do is totally right. the economy has hugely changed. we have to help all kids, not some kids, regardless of where they start and we have to actually help enable opportunity, critical thinking, applying knowledge because that is the only way kids will be prepared for college and for career and then also civic engagement. >> i wanted to pick up on that a little bit because it's the one thing that i always have anxiety about, the job readiness. on the one hand, yes, of course, we know there's a huge givens between a high school's graduate. this notion of making mistakes. from where i sit at the end of the educational process, at

universities, every kid who is in my classes ends up in circumstances where they're from schools where you're encouraged to make mistakes. your experiment fails and you learn from that. to the extent that it's about civic education, you've got to figure out things which means it has to be safe to fail. >> a lot of process. >> it goes back to where the administration is going to be in january. we have some months between now and january and where i hope things will be applied. you've got a situation where the administration on testing has riled the unions and teachers and families and kids all over the country and parents. but on austerity, on spending has kept teachers in work, has hired new teachers. again, it goes back to what we were talking about in the last hour. this election result needs to be seen as a loud call for less austerity thinking, more stimulus thinking, more talking about how we're going to sustain

ourselves. it shouldn't be with all due respect, our teachers, we need to look at our kids when they're in crises in their communities. what they should be able to do is spend their time teaching. >> laura, i'm going to take that as our this should be an election for stimulus. let's stimulate their brains and their jobs. we're going to take a moment now and i'm going to give you a preview of "weekends with alex witt." >> i'm doing well. i love your dress. here we go. the david petraeus resignation. what more do we know about -- the man who studied his life and tried to figure him out. the author of barack obama, the story. at least one state has passed a tax on the wealthy. does that mean the rest of the country will agree? i'm talking to the former

governor of the state, gray davis. politics, what do the elections say about america. unique perspective from eugene robinson. i'm looking forward to that. >> thank you, alex. you have great guests. >> i know. trying to match up with you. >> thank you, alex. and when we come back, we're going to talk about the fact that they lost their homes and their possessions during hurricane sandy but they didn't lose their right to vote. our foot soldier is next. 8 training from your son. can you help me with something? nope! good talk. [ male announcer ] or free windows 8 training when you buy a computer at staples. another way staples makes it easier to upgrade.

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for most of us election day is the chance to flex our individual civic muscles and contribute directly to our ever evolving democratic experiment, united states. it's a time when individuals endure hours long lines to spend those few precious moments citing our nation's future. typically we go alone into that

voting booth where everyone is able to exercise this franchise. almost everyone. for many displaced by hurricane sandy, getting to the polls on tuesday became not just a hardship, it became an impossibility. an impossibility that our foot soldier of the week, lydia beasley, refused to accept. she began volunteering at her local ymca after it was repurposed into a storm shelter with 500 beds populated mostly by displaced elderly and special needs citizens. during some down time she sat listening to evacuees seriously debating the presidential election. she asked them, will you be able to vote? the resounding and unanimous answer was, no. she decided no matter how difficult the process, she would help the people in the shelter have their votes counted and it was hard. you've heard of campaign

volunteers going do door to door, she went bed to bed making sure everyone who wanted to vote could. thanks to new york governor andrew cuomo's voting extension rules in the wake of sand whyy, she was able to collect 75 affidavit ballots to be signed by storm victims and then delivered on tuesday before the polls closed. she even found time to cast her own slow the. the cake topper, she secured a first-time registration from a 79-year-old new york city native named james who told us, quote, i should have done this before. i'm glad she convinced me. and if i'm around the next four years, i'm going to vote. i really will. she told us that making the democratic process accessible to those displaced by sandy was just part of her goal. she also wanted to bring those that lost their homes, their possessions, their sense of security just a little sense of normalcy. for understanding the power and potential of the vote lydia

beasley is our foot soldier of the week. that is our show for today. i want to thank raul reyes, randi weingarten and laura and especially thanks to you at home who are watching and all those students and professors in wayne college in jackson, tennessee. i was moved to know that you were going to watch the show and have a post election forum today. eat those donuts and have a good time. i'm going to see you tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern.